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Few vacationers need an excuse to visit San Diego, what with its omnipresent sunny skies, alluring beaches and wealth of family attractions. But for out-of-town beer aficionados looking for a November getaway, there’s really only one overriding reason to come: Beer Week.

Chock full of hundreds of events devoted to the love of beer, the 10-day festival, which got underway Friday, is their version of SeaWorld, Legoland and the San Diego Zoo rolled into one. Now in its third year, the event is becoming a big draw for visitors eager to indulge in San Diego’s growing repertoire of craft brews.

While the county’s mushrooming number of homegrown breweries — more than 30 at last count — is already known to locals, its reputation for quality beer is now spreading throughout the country as well.

Recognizing the beverage’s potential to spur overnight visits during a slow time of the year, San Diego hoteliers have been willing to dole out generous tourism marketing subsidies to the San Diego Brewers Guild to help promote its annual event.

By the time Beer Week ends next weekend, sponsors expect it to yield some 2,500 room nights, the equivalent of more than $300,000 in revenues. Local brewers, though, have far loftier goals for their still nascent effort, hoping that Beer Week can one day approach the draw of a bowl game, delivering more than 20,000 visitors to San Diego.

“If you see an ad or promotional story for an event showing people in flip flops and shorts enjoying a beer in November during San Diego Beer Week, that reinforces the powerful brand of what San Diego has to offer,” said Lorin Stewart, executive director of the San Diego Tourism Marketing District, which oversees funds generated by a 2 percent surcharge on the city’s hotel rooms. “I don’t think 2,500 rooms says you’re on your way yet to being successful. And to go to 25,000 rooms that’s a big step.”

Healthy marketing subsidy

Armed this year with nearly $75,000 in marketing funds, the Brewers Guild spent a good deal of the money on print, radio and online advertising targeting beer lovers. Organizers recognized early on that if they were to persuade the tourism marketing board to help finance their initiative, they’d have to hold it offseason when local hotels are working harder to drum up business.

“We realized we didn’t have the resources to get this jump-started,” said Chris Cramer, co-founder of Karl Strauss Brewery. “We could have done a first-year event that would have been fairly successful locally but there would have been no real draw outside the region. There are people who have the financial resources to travel and follow their passion for great beer.”

Gourmet food was paired with craft beers at last year's Beer Garden event held at the Lodge at Torrey Pines.— San Diego Brewers Guild

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Gourmet food was paired with craft beers at last year's Beer Garden event held at the Lodge at Torrey Pines.
/ San Diego Brewers Guild

Is it too much of a stretch, wonders Cramer, that San Diego could one day be known as the Napa Valley of craft beer? He’s so convinced of its power to boost tourism — and his business — that Karl Strauss is investing $1 million to revamp the Pacific Beach brewery so that it can be opened up to the public for tours and tastings.

There’s already a San Diego-based company that does nothing other than promote beer-centered tours and tastings, drawing about 100 people a week.

“If we package this beer culture in a certain way,” suggested Cramer, “we could get top-of-mind awareness that would have an ancillary pull for beer tourism throughout the rest of the year.”

If it wasn’t for the still sputtering economy, self-described beer geek Devon Adams and her boyfriend Josh Norton would be headed yet again from their Colorado home to San Diego for Beer Week. They came last year and spent about $3,200 and other than a half-day fishing trip, their focus was strictly beer.

“We want to come back every year but unfortunately, the economy didn’t allow us to do that,” said Adams, 29, a state parks and wildlife employee. “When it comes to beer places I’ve been, I’d put San Diego right after Belgium in terms of the sheer amount of beer you can get, the variety and access to brewers.”

“I’m determined to come next year. I’m not going to let something silly like money get in the way.”

Uptick in occupancy

While local hoteliers acknowledge that no one property benefits greatly from Beer Week given that events are dispersed throughout the county, some say they have noticed a decided uptick in business.

Downtown San Diego’s Hotel Solamar will likely see 4 percent increase in occupancy this year from Beer Week patrons, said general manager Mark Dibella. The hotel’s restaurant, Jsix, is offering nightly menus with beer pairings.

“It’s bringing repeat customers over a time frame when we don’t expect as much demand,” he said.

Just how many people truly patronize Beer Week and also book hotel rooms over the 10 days is still a little murky. The Brewers Guild’s attempt at a survey failed the first year, and last year’s effort wasn’t as robust as it could have been. The 2010 polling of about 100 people who attended a variety of small, medium and large events indicated that Beer Week produced about 1,435 room nights. The Guild is projecting 2,500 room nights for this year.

San Diego State University professor Mark Testa, who was hired by the Brewers Guild to measure Beer Week’s room night production, said he’s planning a more comprehensive survey than last year’s effort.

“We’ll go to 16 to 20 events this year, and our goal would be to double or triple the 100 interviewed (in 2010),” said Testa, who teaches at the L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.

As much as tourism leaders are hopeful that Beer Week will continue to grow and fill an increasing number of hotel rooms, its roughtly 4 to 1 return on investment based on the funding it receives remains relatively low compared to other events that are funded, such as the Rock and Roll Marathon.

“I think our board is wanting to see the plan for growing those numbers,” Stewart said. “Our board’s pretty clear that we can give seed money on faith but after a short period of time, the question of your continued funding will be based on your results.

"If you are not proving successful, or if you become so successful that you are able to stand on your own two feet, we can’t fund you.”